Zhongwen

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October 09, 2012

Aaron Friedberg has a piece in The Diplomat today: "America Cannot 'Lead From Behind' in East Asia." It is a critique of what he takes to be a shift in US policy toward China, a softening of the US "pivot" toward Asia. I think he is overstating things, and avoiding some more important issues.

Friedberg complains that recent trips to the region by Secretary of State Clinton and Secretary of Defense Panetta have sent a conciliatory signal to Beijing that could undermine the US commitment to its allies - Japan, South Korea, the Philippines - and thereby weaken the American counterbalance to Chinese power in the region. But two key points, which Friedberg ignores, suggest that a period of rhetorical softening does not undermine the broader strategic orientation.

First, the US pivot to Asia has, at its core, a redefined deployment of US military power globally. In managing reductions in military spending, President Obama has identified Asia, and obviously the military rise of China, as the key strategic issue of the future and has come up with plans to shift US military power, especially naval power, in that direction:

Panetta said: “By 2020, the navy will re-posture its forces from today’s
roughly 50/50 percent spilt between the Pacific and the Atlantic to
about 60/40 split between those oceans. That will include six aircraft
carriers in this region, a majority of our cruisers, destroyers,
littoral combat ships, and submarines.” The objective would be to
“rapidly project military power if needed to meet” the US security
commitments in the region, despite China’s fast- growing military might.

It takes a long time to effect these kinds of changes, but as a short-term, symbolic gesture to signal the new US stance, a small contingent of US Marines has been stationed in Australia.

Now, we can argue about the merits of this change in policy (it seems sensible given the growing significance of the Chinese military) and we can disagree about the quantity of resources the US should focus on Asia, but what seems incontestable is that this policy remains in place. The US is in the midst of planning to redeploy its global military power in roughly the way Panetta originally stated. The rhetorical shift by Clinton and Panetta is just that, rhetorical. They are using words to ease the way for the underlying strategic shift. On the face of it, it does seem a bit absurd to argue to the PRC that the pivot is not about them. It obviously is. But diplomacy often involves this kind of spin. What matters, however, are not the words, but the actions. Thus, I think Friedberg is wrong. I don't think the change in rhetoric reflects a change in policy. He would have to show us how the undelying policy has, in fact, materially changed, and he doesn't do that.

Secondly, this is a time for more conciliatory speech. The islands disputes that have heated up of late between China and Japan, and China and the Philippines, have roiled regional relations. Friedberg seems to think that now is the time for the US to come out and clearly state, in a show of strength, that it will commit itself to war against the PRC over islets claimed by Japan and the Philippines. He writes:

Having sought at first to stiffen their spines, Washington now aims to
put some distance between itself and its allies in Asia, reminding them
that it takes no stand on the ultimate resolution of their maritime
disputes with China. A striking case in point is the administration’s
repeated refusal to clarify whether it would come to the aid of the
Philippines in the event of an attack on its forces in the South China
Sea.

In the first place, regarding the China-Japan dispute, the US has, since at least 1971, taken the position that it has no position on the determination of ultimate sovereignty over the Senkaku/Diaoyutai islands. So, it would seem that Friedberg believes that precisely now, in the midst of the worst tensions over those conflicting claims in recent decades, is the best time for the US to change a long-standing policy in a manner that would obviously inflame Chinese passions more. That strikes me as rather ill-considered.

Regarding the Sino-Philippine dispute, Friedberg must realize that the US must be careful in its statements, so as not to leave the impression that it is giving a carte blanche to its ally. War with China would be a grave matter for the US, and we should not cede the decision over the commitment of US power to that end to politicians in other countries, even good friends like the Philippines.

Now, Friedberg might want to argue that the US has a Mutual Security Treaty with the Philippines and that we should be willing to clearly state our willingness to go to war to live up to that treaty. But the treaty language itself (sometime Wikipedia is good!) is actually rather fuzzy:

Article IV

Each Party recognizes that an armed attack in the Pacific Area on
either of the Parties would be dangerous to its own peace and safety and
declares that it would act to meet the common dangers in accordance
with its constitutional processes. Any such armed attack and all
measures taken as a result thereof shall be immediately reported to the
Security Council of the United Nations. Such measures shall be
terminated when the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to
restore and maintain international peace and security.

There is no clear commitment there for the US to go to war over the Scarborough Shoal. Recognizing the danger of a Chinese take over of those rocks is rather different than a clear commitment to defend them.

Long story short: Firedberg is making more out of a diplomatic softening of a relatively consistent US policy than is warranted by the situation at hand. Moreover, he is also miscalculating likely Chinese responses. If the US raises the rhetorical heat, - Friedberg seems to yearn for "muscular, martial rhetoric" - what would the PRC do? My sense is that in a time of more passionately mobilized popular nationalism, PRC leaders would most likely feel it necessary to demonstrate their resolve to assuage public opinion. More US chest-thumping, particularly at this moment, really will not accomplish anything tangible in terms of US interests. Best to keep the rhetoric happy and continue to pivot strategically.

But there is a bigger issue here, one that Friedberg elides, and that is the clear limitation of US power. Neocons - and Friedberg is, at least, a fellow neocon traveler from his days as Dick Cheney's foreign policy guy - never want to recognize that the US is limited in what it can do in the world. They have not learned from the failure in Iraq. And the failure to manage regime change there came well before the financial crisis of 2008, which has cut the economic rug out from under US power more generally. Friedberg seems oblivious to the new global (it is not just a US problem!) economic realities:

Even more important, it [the US] needs to make costly, long-term investments in
the military capabilities that will be needed to counter China’s own.

This, of course, requires a broader budgetary policy, one that would, you know, actually raise the revenues to cover such costs. It might be unfair to demand that Friedberg, a foreign policy specialist, solve that rather big problem. But it is a very, very big problem, and I would have more confidence in Friedberg's analysis if he weren't an active member of the Mitt Romney campaign. Romney has no answer for the crushing financial problems facing the US, because his, and his party's, ideological stance against taxation make a solution impossible. So, Friedberg cannot be taken seriously here: he says that costly investments are necessary, but he has no plan for doing that in a way that preserves US economic power, which, after all, is central to US power more generally.

And that is why the US, ultimately, must "lead from behind" in East Asia. Now, Friedberg and other neocons deploy "lead from behind" as a critique. It is, for them, a sign of weakness, an unwillingness to step up and do the manly stuff of leading from the front. But that fundamentally misconstrues what leading from behind is all about.

We can get a better sense of it from the Daodejing (the invocation of which, I imagine, Friedberg would also take as a sign of weakness). Consider this excerpt from passage 66:

Oceans and rivers become emperors of the hundred valleys because they stay so perfectly below them. This alone makes them emperors of the hundred valleys.

So, wanting to rule over the people, a sage speaks from below them, and wanting to lead the people, he follows behind them,

then he can reign above without weighing the people down and stay ahead without leading the people to ruin.

It should be noted immediately that this is not presented as a recipe for surrender. Rather, the writers of the DDJ are here telling a leader how to be effective in his or her leadership. The "sage" wants to "rule over the people" and "lead the people." The sage seeks to "reign above" and "stay ahead." This is all about subtle but effective leadership.

And what is that effective leadership? It is based on an understanding of evolving circumstances and context. The leader tries to get some understanding of where the "people" are naturally going and then he or she facilitates that organic process. An attempt to to impose a "solution" or "goal" that is wholly external to the particulars of the context is likely to fail. Rather, effective leadership works with what is possible in the immediate moment.

In terms of the US in East Asia this might suggest careful, incremental steps, not imprudent and aggressive moves. Let the situation develop. Indeed, there is a natural response taking shape already. The PRC is over-playing its hand in its territorial assertiveness, creating a greater likelihood that other countires in the region - Vietnam and Indonesia as well as Japan and South Korea and the Philippines - will move in a counterbalancing direction. This is a long game. The PRC will, undoubtedly, gain in power. But that gain will shift the strategic context in ways that will limit PRC power. The US does not need to force the issue. It can maintain its close ties with Japan, South Korea and the Philippines, continue its strategic ambiguity on particular island claims, cultivate closer relations with Vietnam, quietly redeploy naval assets in an economically more efficient manner, and preserve its own recources as much as possible.

Leading from behind does not mean doing absolutely nothing. It is, rather, an approach that values contextual prudence over impulsive intervention.

The US tried to force its will militarily in Korea in 1950 after the status quo ante had been regained, and it failed horribly. It tried to impose a "solution" in Vietnam and it lost ignominiously. It invaded Iraq in 2003 to very bad results. In these cases the US led from the front in a "muscular, martial" style. How many of these kinds of failures do we have to suffer before the virtues of leading from behind are made evident?

And if quoting the Daodejing seems a bit too mushy, how about Sunzi:

He who knows when he can fight and when he cannot will be victorious. (3.24)

October 08, 2012

Read a good book recently: Richard J. Smith's The I Ching: A Biography. Composed by an accomplished academic, it is written for a general audience. Smith provides a concise and clear background to the text and how it emerged into "classic" status in China. He goes into some of the numerology that various Chinese commentators have applied to the text, and he shows how the book's influence spread throughout East Asia and, eventually, to the West. I had known that John Cage used it in some of his music, but had been unaware of I Ching's significance in Mexico. Interesting stuff.

In a larger sense, Smith's study feeds into my expanding interest in the movement of ideas, concepts, theories from one historical-cultural context to another. This is important to me because, well..., I just did that in my forthcoming book. How can we take ideas from Confucius or the I Ching and apply them to contemporary issues? Meanings change. But translation, and cultural transposition, is, I believe, possible; indeed, it happens all the time. But some meanings are lost in translation, while new meanings are created. Which meanings persist and how do new ones take hold?

Big questions, I know. But Smith's survey of the I Ching's historical development reminds us that we should not assume that there was, somewhere in the mists of the past, a singular, coherent and authentic source of ancient texts. We like to invent mythic progenitors, like Fuxi in the case of the I Ching. But reality, Smith shows us, is always more complex:

Recent archaeological discoveries have shown, however, that there were several different traditions of Yijing-related divination in the latter part of the Zhou period, and that hexagram pictures and divinatory procedures took a variety of forms in different localities and at different times. (22-23)

Is one of these early forms more genuine or real than the others? It hardly seems worth it to ask the question. Better to assume and accept a plurality of practices and meanings. And that has always been the case historically. Yes, certain forms of the classic texts were standardized as literary canons were defined and reproduced. Yet even in those conditions, variation in interpretation and understanding continued.

David R. Knechtges gives us a very good sense of this variability in his article, "The Perils and Pleasures of Translation: The Case of the Chinese Classics." He analyzes translations of the Yijing into Western languages, beginning with what appears to be the first such effort by Philippe Couplet, a Jesuit, in the late 17th century. But Knechtges also reminds us of the vast commentarial tradition in China. For each classic text there has developed, over the centuries, various schools of interpretation and understanding. Should we use Wang Bi's or Zhu Xi's edition when translating the Yijing into English? Knechtges quotes Richard John Lynn:

In my view, however, there is no one single Classic of Changes but rather as many version of it as there are different commentaries on it. The text of the classic is so dense and opaque in so many places that its meaning depends entirely on how any particular commentary interprets it. (8)

Much the same can be said of most other pre-Qin texts. Thus, there is no one "Confucian" point of view but, rather, a range of possibiities within a "Confucian" field of meaning.

Things get more complex when moving from one language to another. Knechtges makes a good point along these lines:

Translation is in effect another commentary on the text.

When we translate we bring a text from one historical-cultural context into another historical-cultural context. Though the distance from pre-Qin China to, say, contemporary American may be further than that between pre-Qin China and Song China, the problematique is fundamentally the same. Zhu Xi lived in a very different political and cultural environment than did Confucius; he had to adapt the thought of his predecessor to the context of his own times. Even though the linguistic medium provided a certain continuity, Zhu still faced problems of meaning and interpretation given the commentaries that had already amassed before him and the intellectual demands of his own intellectual millieu.

Don't get me wrong. I absolutely recognize that translation can distort meanings. Interpreters can make mistakes. But that problem is not limited to the interpretation of texts across wider periods of history and culture. Distortion and error and manipulation can occur with cultures as well as across them. My contemporary adaptations of Confucius and Zhaungzi might be challenged by others who hold different views. I excpet and welcome that. But I do not offer my interpretations as ultimately and unalterably "true" or "authentic." They are, as Knechtges might suggest, simply another form of commentary on the texts.

October 01, 2012

My father-in-law died last week. In his last few days I sat with him as he struggled to hold on to his pride as congestive heart failure brought him low. His respirations eventually settled into a slow and steady pace, consiousness slipped away. I wasn't there when he drew his very last breath, I walked in a moment too late, but then, at that instant, I could see that he had found the peace he sought.

I learned a lot from him, though he was not a conventional teacher. In fact, he would have scoffed, in his rough Brooklyn manner, if anyone had ever accused him of being a teacher. No, he saw himself as a worker. That was what he had done all his life. The highest compliment he would pay to a person, and he did so only sparingly, was to say: "he's a good worker." That meant you did your job, you didn't complain, you didn't slack off or try to finagle your way out. You just worked and kept at it. And you worked to take care of your family.

That was the key to his life: family. He would do, without hesitation, whatever was required to serve his family. Second eldest of fifteen children, a sprawling Brooklyn-Staten Island family, he was absolutely faithful to his parents. When his father called, perhaps to round up a few of his ten sons to do some sort of work, Reg would respond, without question, because that was what a son was supposed to do when a father called. He cared for his wife and daughters dutifully, working various jobs, all unforgiving manual labor, to make sure they had the comforts of home. He built a middle class American life for them without benefit of a high school diploma through his diligence and constancy.

He knew tragedy and heartbreak. One of his daughters died young, robbing him of part of his reason for being. But he kept on, knowing that other family duties still had to be fulfilled. When his grandson, my son, Aidan, was diagnosed with profound disabilities, he absorbed the deep disappointment but did not falter. He cared for Aidan devotedly, loved him unconditionally. In recent years, as his wife sunk into Alzheimer’s Disease, he stayed by her, sat with her, looked after her. However frustrated he might have been at times, he did not walk away.

Like all of us, he had his faults. He could be intolerant and impatient. But what shines so brightly from his life is his dedication to those closest to him and his determination to carry out his family obligations.

For me, thinking about this hard-working and dedicated man, he demonstrates the universality of certain values, values that, in my own line of work, are sometimes associated most closely with Confucianism. Reg was not a Confucian. Quite to the contrary, he would no doubt have had some choice words for me if I had ever suggested this association. Yet in his love and commitment to his family he embodied central principles of Confucianism.

The noble-minded cultivate roots. When roots are secure, the Way is born. To honor parents and elders - isn't that the root of Humanity?

Reg very much personified the spirit of that excerpt from Analects 1.2. He certainly honored his parents. He cultivated the roots of family and created and reproduced humanity there. He cared for his wife and children and grandchildren, and in that care demonstrated his noble-mindedness. No one had to tell hm to do these things; he knew in his heart what he had to do. He was, in a sense, born with an extraordinary moral acuity.

Confucius said: "To be born enlightened: that is highest. To study and so become enlightened: that is the next. To feel trapped and so study: that is third. To feel trapped and never study: that is the level of the common people, the lowest level." (Analects 16.9)

By "enlightened" Confucius here means morally aware. Most people have to learn to be good; they have to study morality to fashion a good life. Some people resist moral learning and fail to cultivate sufficiently their humanity - that is what Confucius means by "common people" in the passage above. But some - few, perhaps - are born with a powerful, instinctual sense of family duty. Not only do they know what should be done, but they have the clarity of mind and heart to follow through and do it. That was Reg. He was enlightened in that sense. He knew what he had to do for his family and he never hesitated in doing it.

He was not perfect, of course. He could be abrasive at times. His foucs on his familial obligations could some times blind him to the needs of others. But from the perspetive of filiality and family, he was exemplary. I learned much from him.